The 3 Ds of Rapid Growth

D ream, dare, do! The three words sum up what networks integra tor 3D
Networks has successfully done in the networks integration market in the last
two plus years. From revenues of less than Rs 1.5 crore in the first few months
after setting shop in India in 2001 to Rs 66 crore in FY 2002—03 and Rs 145
crore in FY 2003—04, it has been nothing short of a gatecrash into the big
league (see Top 10 Network Integrators on page 61). The scorching growth (120
percent in the last one year) that can be linked largely to a very high emphasis
on service culture and customer delight now makes the company's top management
speak confidently of Rs 210 crore in revenues for FY 2004—05.

Barry Southern, chairman, 3D Networks Group stresses on the importance of good service culture

3D Networks which prides on its 'end-to-end solutions' had started the
year with a bang by bagging the '2003 Partner of the Year' for India from
Nortel Networks. Earlier it had become Nortel's sole pan-Asian Platinum
partner. After setting a blistering pace in the market with customer-centric
strategies, it was not in the least surprising that customer delight should be
the theme for the 3D Networks Forum 2004 held in Phuket, Thailand from 5—8 May
2004. The annual forum was attended by the 3D Networks India team and more than
50 channel-partners and customer delegates. It provided a good opportunity for
3D and its partners including Nortel, Juniper, Verint, Concerto, EMC, Fortinet
and Veraz to interact and understand the needs of their customers who are spread
across verticals like BPOs, BFSI, government, service providers, hospitality,
manufacturing, health and pharmaceutical industries.

The agenda for the forum was set with Ashoka Valia, MD, Nortel Networks
India, in his Vision 2004 where he outlined the major milestones for Nortel and
its channel partners in 2004. Subsequently, the changing face of 'convergence'
and the need to have a 'back to basics' model in the enterprise market were
taken up by Rick Seeto, GM, Enterprise Networks, Nortel Networks (Asia Pacific)
and Ray Teske, leader, Enterprise Networks, Nortel Networks (Asia Pacific).

Top honchos of Nortel (Asia Pacific), 3D Networks, and channel partners

Addressing the forum, which also included senior executives from channel
partners and customers like Cognizant, EXL, HTMT, vCustomer, Seeto explained
that convergence is now moving on to the next phase of productivity-related
applications. In this phase, communications applications will move from simple
cost savings to personal productivity. Teske added to this saying, "Future
value will be from productivity improvements via enhanced applications."
Teske also demonstrated Nortel's media conferencing solution or MCS for
enterprises with mobile executives. MCS features a host of collaboration tools,
conferencing, mobility services including forwarding calls made to a particular
number to any other location.

John J Giamatteo, president, Nortel Networks (Asia Pacific) started the
second day's session with a strong reminder on why only customer satisfaction
can drive growth in today's highly competitive market. Both Barry Southern,
chairman, 3D Networks Group and SK Jha, regional director, 3D Networks India,
Saarc and Middle East stressed on service culture as the most efficient way to
rapid growth. Replying to a question on 3D's future course of action, Jha
said, "Our focus is the customer and not competitors. Beyond a point,
prices and discounts will not matter and it will be expertise and service
culture that will gain credence over everything else. If we look after the
customer, he will look after us"

The forum was also addressed by Manoj Chugh, president, EMC (India and Saarc)
who stressed on the need for quality of information (QoI) as an important
differentiator. Chugh also dwelt for some extent on EMC's new Clariion series
disk library, a disk-based back up with 'intelligent importance-based storage.'
The forum also featured a highly-interactive and interesting session on customer
delight as a tool to retain customers by brand-domain specialist, Harish Bijoor.

Benoy George Thomas in Phuket,
Thailand